Poisioned Relief
by SwedishGirl91
Summary: A little story about love and sacrifice and the loss of hope.


**Poisoned Relief**

Disclaimer: How I wish that I owned everything in the Harry Potter universe, but sadly, I don't.

RON

His eyes were constantly searching for the red hair of his family, constantly counting to eight other redheads in the Great Hall, not daring to think of what he would do if he, the next time, could only count to seven, or even less. He would look up from the Calming Draught he was administering and search. When they were accounted for, he sought out the familiar bushy brown hair, and the unruly black mob of his best friends in the daily diminishing crowd. When everyone had been counted, something he did every hour, on the hour, his heart stopped pounding in his ears and he could breathe for a little while longer. Who knew how long this would go on? All he could do was to take care of another hysteric child and count. One, two, three…

DUMBLEDORE

I have spent my life fostering and nurturing this school and all its inhabitants. I believe that I have done the best job that I can, and it hurts me immensely to see all this destruction and misery spreading through these beloved corridors. The Great Hall has turned into a hospital, all the students are sleeping huddled together in the dungeons and the staff has not slept in days. When the night comes I can only hope that all of us will make it through to the next day. The virus they have managed to spread is taking more and more of us and they will not cease until they have Harry. Merlin knows what they want to do with him. Minerva's hand finds mine when we stand looking out on the students sleeping uneasily. How can we spare them this pain when we cannot give up Harry?  
After years of speaking and arguing, words are not needed between Minerva and me; I can feel her hope slowly draining away.

HERMIONE

The poison is entering the school somehow, a way we have not thought of yet. The water and food have been checked. Everything we can think of. They are muggles, Hermione thought, and she was brought up in that world. How could she not figure out the answer? Ron and Harry are looking worse every day, they feel it too. She just wanted to…no.  
The poison attacks the respiratory system first making the victim breathe asthmatically and then slowly shuts off the air supply to the brain and the victim will eventually become brain dead. Hermione saw little First Years lying in their beds, dead but for the slow beating of their heart. Madam Pomfrey was at a loss, and so was Hermione. She had to focus, could not think of the young students dying or how it could be Ron or Harry next. No.  
Looking up from the medical texts she was always reading nowadays, she saw her best friend sitting on the same chair he had sat in for days. He would not leave him; he just sat there and watched him breathe - watched him slowly die.

SNAPE

The dreams kept changing. One moment he was riding on a mouse around and around in the ocean, later he would be serving tea to Dumbledore and Hagrid on the roof of Hogwarts and the next he was sitting in a comfortable chair, holding a hand that would not let go. He recognized that last one. That was a memory, from when this all started; that first night when he had come down to the chambers and just taken his hand, unable to speak. They had all heard the demand: Give us Harry Potter or you will all die, you magical scum. The Muggles had somehow gotten it into their heads that Harry was the key to becoming immortal, like The Dar Lord. He and Potter had sat together on the couch that night, trying to process the information, not knowing that Ernie Macmillan and Colin Creevey would be the first victims the next day. The first of many. Including Snape himself.  
He could still feel the environment around him - still feel _him_ – and it gave him comfort to know that Potter would be with him when the older man would eventually die. So when the hand suddenly let go, he stirred and wondered, what will that stupid boy do now?

DRACO

I knew we could never trust the Muggles. My Father has always been right, and now that Crabbe is as good as dead because of their filthy Muggle drugs, the others finally see. We should never have revealed ourselves! That Minister of Magic is the most incapable man that ever lived and should have known better. Father would never have made that mistake, and now we are all trapped at Hogwarts, losing more precious magical folk every day.  
And the Muggles are so stupid! The Dark Lord is dead, which means that he wasn't immortal! Why in the world would Potter have the answers just because he was the one who finally killed him? He barely made it; Professor Snape had to help him to point the wand just so he could say the last lethal words… Damn them! We had just started to feel normal again, and suddenly the entire castle was surrounded by those nasty dunderheads and they have the audacity to threaten to kill us! We are their superiors in every way. _Except for developing the antidote to the virus… _But we cannot give in to their threats - that would mean defeat - no matter how many lives we will lose.

Hey, why's Potter going outside?

HARRY

_Severus._


End file.
